Isn't take off the phrase here, which might cause some confusion?
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KobiAug 13 '10 at 11:47

1

It's similar to the use of "write me" as opposed to "write to me". As a non-American English speaker "write me" means to write the word "me" whereas "write to me" means to write something for me.
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soutarmSep 2 '10 at 2:34

7

Even British speakers take things "out of boxes" and not "out boxes". Nobody considers that grammatically incorrect. Why should the preposition "out" be treated differently than "off"? In America, "off of" is perfectly fine usage.
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Peter Shor Mar 20 '11 at 12:53

2

@Francesca I'm about as elitist as they come, and I resent being told by narrow-minded rationalizers that I may not employ the language of Shakespeare and Shaw.
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StoneyBAug 19 '12 at 1:07

1

@Francesca What's wrong with pronouncing the 't' in often? This reminds me of a passage in Steven Pinker's book concerning a a Massachusetts controversy in which some legislators were upset that their kids were being taught by teachers with a foreign accent. A local parent responded with the observation that her kid's Bay State teacher taught the kid that 'orphan' was a homonym for 'often.'
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MerkOct 18 '12 at 6:50

7 Answers
7

I don't know how you can explain to people in general that it's grammatically incorrect, but here is one idea: when you go to a James Brown tribute concert and the singer says "Get up offa that thing" what you could do is to trounce the security guards, climb on to the stage, pounce onto the singer, grab the microphone and say "In fact you should be saying not 'get up offa that thing' but 'get up off that thing' since 'offa' is grammatically incorrect." I'm sure everyone will thank you for your grammatical corrections.

Being serious for a moment though, it's very difficult to decide what is or is not "grammatically correct". E.g. in the UK we say "outside my house" but US people often say "outside of my house". How can you actually decide which of these two is grammatically correct? Unfortunately it's not possible since English grammar is not a science like physics but merely a description of what people actually do, and that has changed very significantly over the years. If I was teaching someone English I would definitely say "off" is correct and "off of" is wrong, but this kind of decision is based on intuition, based on the usages of educated native speakers.

How can I explain to people that the phrase "off of" is grammatically incorrect?

You can't, because it's not.

There are thousands of examples of “off of” in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, not just in spoken English, but in magazines, newspapers, and academic journals as well. “Off of” is well-established as standard in American English. Plain “off” may be stylistically preferable in many cases, but it is simply not a rule of English grammar that if a word could be removed it must be removed. Some people seem to think that such a rule exists. It does not.

@a_m0d, in that case I guess the answer to your original question is to decry it as one of those barbarous Americanisms, and then you can ride the lift down from your flat and walk across the car park to your car so you can put your biscuits into the boot, and be careful not to hit your tyres on the kerb as you speed away on the wrong side of the road.
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nohat♦Aug 13 '10 at 22:46

The phrase "off of" has a long history, which, according to the OED, stretches back roughly 500 years. If you want to consider it to be "wrong", then it certainly has a lot of staying power. Here are their quotations using "off of":

?c1450 in G. Müller Aus mittelengl.
Medizintexten (1929) 116 Take a
sponfull of e licour..of of e fyir and
sette it in good place tyl at it be ny
colde, soo as ou mayst suffryn to
holdyn er-in in hand.a1616
SHAKESPEARE Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1623) II.
i. 98 A fall off of [1594 Falling off
on] a Tree.1667 A. MARVELL Corr. in
Wks. (1875) II. 224 The Lords and we
cannot yet get off of the difficultyes
risen betwixt us.1678 J. BUNYAN
Pilgrim's Progress 49 About a furlong
off of the Porters Lodge. 1712 R.
STEELE Spectator No. 306. 6, I could
not keep my Eyes off of her.1720 D.
DEFOE Mem. Cavalier 281, I had
perswaded him off of that.1748 S.
RICHARDSON Clarissa V. xiii. 132
Biting my lip, [was to indicate] Get
off of that, as fast as possible.1775
P. OLIVER in T. Hutchinson's Diary 7
Dec. I. 581 A Rebell
Pirate..taken..off of Cape Ann.a1805
in F. J. Child Eng. & Sc. Pop. Ballads
(1894) V. IX. 106/2 Aff o the weather
[read wether] he took the skin, An
rowt his bonny lady in.1824 J. WIGHT
Mornings at Bow St. 21 Two young
men..were charged by a watchman with
having ‘bother'd him on his bate,’ and
refused to ‘go along off of it when he
tould 'em.’1843 T. C. HALIBURTON
Attaché 1st Ser. II. xii. 210 The
groom has stole her oats, forgot to
give her water, and let her make a
supper sometimes off of her nasty,
mouldy, filthy beddin'.1868 HARTLEY
Clock Alm. in Leeds Mercury Weekly
Suppl. (1895) 5 Oct., He connot
forshame To lift up his een off o' th'
graand.1875 P. BROOKS New Starts in
Life viii. 129 If you could have
filled his pockets with gold, and
feasted his hunger off of silver
dishes.1884 ‘M. TWAIN’ Adventures
Huckleberry Finn vi. 45 I'd borrow two
or three dollars off of the judge for
him.1909 G. GREIG Mains's Wooin' 6
He's swallowed the dictionar', min,
an's tryin' to get 'er aff o's
stammack.a1922 T. S. ELIOT Waste Land
Drafts (1971) 5 The reputation the
place gets, off of a few barflies.1962 F. NORMAN Guntz i. 15, I got hold
of this very very old typewriter off
of a friend of mine.1974 J. STUBBS
Painted Face xxiii. 284 Get off of me,
will you, sir?1990 B. ROCHE Poor
Beast in Rain II. i. 44, I was hangin'
around here all the time, gettin'
sweet nothin' off of you.

This may perhaps be more common in American English nowadays, but it certainly didn't originate there.

Is it really an Americanism? Or is "off" a Britishism? After all, American English, by way of number of speakers, is standard English. (I'm British, btw)
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ArmstrongestAug 16 '10 at 2:07

3

I can see where you're coming from but I'd have to say that whatever came first is the original and anything after is an -ism. (I'm Australian and speak the Queen's English ;))
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soutarmAug 17 '10 at 2:16

3

Contemporary British English is not "the original". And whatever the original was, it is no longer contemporary. Both American and British English have been deviating from their common ancestor — in different directions but by the same degree. And in many respects, contemporary American English is in fact much closer to the original than contemporary British English.
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RegDwigнt♦Aug 18 '12 at 23:00

1

Contemporary British English is not "the original"! No, we Brits have pinched (sorry, loaned) from the Greeks, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans ... Perhaps we need to mug up on Beaker-speak to determine what we should actually label correct English.
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Edwin AshworthSep 1 '12 at 19:31

2

@soutarm Forsooth! What is this barbarous tongue that thou speakest and fain call by the name of "original English"?
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JayOct 16 '12 at 14:03

In my opinion, if you mean to say, "off of", then you should instead say, "from". For example, "Take the book off of the bookcase", when, "Take the book from the bookcase", is preferable.
As I understand it, the expression "off of", is an Americanism, but the pseudo-antonym, "on of", is rarely (if not never), found in any language as far as I am aware.